Congress must unite to pro­tect DACA

In my dis­trict and across the coun­try, DREAM­ers — un­doc­u­mented im­mi­grants brought to the United States as chil­dren — make im­por­tant so­ci­etal con­tri­bu­tions.

DREAM­ers are a vi­tal part of our na­tion's fab­ric, and they must be de­fended.

Yet, their fate is now un­cer­tain as Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump pre­pares to end DACA, the pro­gram that al­lowed 800,000 DREAM­ers to come out of the shad­ows and es­tab­lish roots in the coun­try they call home.

It is im­per­a­tive to em­pha­size the lo­cal and na­tional con­se­quences of shut­ter­ing such a crit­i­cal pro­gram.

Most DREAM­ers have known no other home than the United States.

The vast ma­jor­ity of DACAel­i­gi­ble stu­dents over the age of 18 re­ceived a high school ed­u­ca­tion here.

Our na­tion has made an in­vest­ment in their fu­ture that not only trans­formed their lives, but also had wide­spread eco­nomic ben­e­fits for all of us. Turn­ing our backs on that in­vest­ment and end­ing DACA isn't just morally rep­re­hen­si­ble, but it could also cost the coun­try up to 700,000 jobs and $460.3 bil­lion in eco­nomic out­put over the next decade.

If Wis­con­sin's 6,582 DACA work­ers are de­ported, it would cost the state more than $400 mil­lion an­nu­ally.

As the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ues to push a truly un-Amer­i­can agenda of dis­crim­i­na­tion and mass de­por­ta­tion, Congress must unite to pro­tect DACA, its re­cip­i­ents and their fam­i­lies.